Marie Claire, Why Did You Write A Piece About Hating Fat People?

So, hey. How are things going? Is it nice where you are? Do they still have the sushi chef? How about the Orangina? Good news, our office rat problem is almost under control, and we haven’t found rodents in any of our purses in weeks!

Anyhow, Marie Claire editors, I figure you have all those things because you’re really good about knowing what articles to run, and don’t just sit around talking to Ashley about whether or not advertisers would be cool with you making a gallery about how to shoplift effectively (We want to call it “Fuck Department Stores: A Guide To Getting What You DESERVE. By the way, no, the advertisers aren’t cool with it). So, that article of Maura Kelly’s you ran about fat people entitled “Should Fatties Get A Room” because Maura Kelly hated seeing fat people… exist, basically… that was there for a really good reason, right?

Like, see, it’s this paragraph that has me confused. I know this is in response to the sitcom Mike and Molly, which is about two people meeting in Overeaters Anonymous, so obviously you’re going to have to touch on weight, and that can be a – ha ha! – touchy subject, but this seems to go beyond that:

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room – just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

First of all, who are these elusive heroine addicts? Am I one of them? My heroine in my Grandma. And also, Dorothy Parker and Diana Vreeland. Jeez, you know, sometimes I get so caught up in admiring cool women that I want to know more of them, and more, and more, the way I want more and more pistachios, and… well, yes, I guess it is troubling, and causes me to slump in chairs. I’m going to get help.

But I guess that’s not as upsetting as watching fat people walk places. And then there’s this:

Then again, I guess these characters are in Overeaters Anonymous. So … points for trying?

Then again, I tend to think most television shows are a kind of junk food for the mind and body. The boob tube gives us an excuse to turn off both our brains and our bodies and probably does a helluva lot to contribute to the obesity problem, over all. So … I don’t know.

Look, I’m kind of curious if Maura Kelly was just like “I am going to offend the largest number of people possible, because I have a book to promote” and everyone at Marie Claire slurred, “yes, we are drunk on free office bellinis right now, and we love you.” And then Maura Kelly got all disturbed because she doesn’t like seeing drunk people.

Or maybe this was just some editor saying “Let’s set ourselves apart from the other womens magazines by doing all kinds of scumbag shit.” I understand that, too. Look, I’m writing about it right now! It worked!

Honestly, we do scumbag shit too, sometimes, just for the hell of it, so I get that. But I generally think of us as… not being an entirely respectable publication. And you are, right? You have Orangina there. You’re part of Hearst. You’re not some bunch of 20-somethings sitting around in a rat-filled office drinking vodka and making jokes. You – and I know maybe this sounds absurd – have a responsibility to publish content that is not going to make some overweight 16 year old spend the rest of the day puking up her lunch.